Part 6: Queenstown, New Zealand

Moody Milford Sound on a cloudy day

Flying into Queenstown gave us a great view of one of the rare "braided rivers" that occur here. From the moment we hit the tarmac surrounded by mountains it was evident that this was going to be a special place. This quaint little town is perched on the shores of Lake Wakatipu (the longest lake in the country - 50 miles) and wrapped in the Remarkables Mountain Range (according to our guide one of only 2 mountain ranges in the world to run completely north - south, the other being the Rockies).

Our Uber driver from the airport told us that only one percent of the population is local residents, and I'm inclined to believe him. This whole place is full of people (and food) from everywhere. We explored the busy downtown wharf area with it's 1912 coal-fired steam ship, jet boats, street-food vendors, and (our surprising favorite) floating bar. Then we made our way through the Queenstown botanical garden, where we chatted with a sweet a local man practicing his lawn bowling. Perfect weather and a perfect first day!

The next day was our big ticket Milford Sound adventure. While we usually try to do stuff like this on our own, being spared the 8 hours of driving on winding mountain roads, on the "wrong" side, seemed like the way to go. Plus the guide for our small tour was great, and told us all about Fiordland national park (bigger than Yosemite and Yellowstone combined), and the crazy history of the New Zealand deer wars (seriously, look it up). On the way to the sound, we drove through all kinds of stunning scenery, including an immense field of golden grass that stretched on seemingly forever, ringed in the far distance with huge mountains. This was Eglinton Flats Grasslands, which was the filming location for an Orc battle in the Lord of the Rings. Nerd points!

The clouds had rolled in by the time we got to the Sound itself (it's actually a fjord), which made getting good photos with a cellphone challenging. We were hoping for actual rain, which would have turned the whole place into a giant waterfall, but it's such a stunning landscape that we were happy to be there in any weather. We saw dolphins and seals as we made our way through ever increasing wind and waves to the Tasman Sea, getting thoroughly soaked in the process. The sides of the Fjord are so steep that our large boat was able to tuck right up underneath Sterling falls for what they call a "glacial facial," with water from thousands of years ago. On the drive back, our driver showed us some pretty epic avalanche locations, and we got to see one of NZ's three native parrots, the threatened Kākā, which has the approximate intelligence of a dog or a three-year-old child!

Our last day had us itching to find a trail, so we took a sweet little hike to a waterfall about halfway up the gondola hill in the Ben Lomond forest, along the pipeline of a discontinued hydraulic power station from 1924. It was a serene way to end our stay, with only a few other people on the trail.

We are extremely sad to leave this epic country behind, but excited to find out what Singapore has in store for us... On to the next!